The Write or Die Chick: 6 Wow! and WTH? Highlights from 2011

For me, there are always three sure signs it’s the end of the year: department stores start stocking extra bedazzled dresses for New Year’s Eve shindigs, Christmas trees get trashed by folks who never could get the darn things to stay upright in their stands anyway, and everybody from VH1 to CNN runs reflective “best of” countdowns from the twelve past months. It’s amazing how much happens from January to December and, as always, Black America gave us plenty to chat about, which makes a roundup feel like the right way to fashion my last post for this fine, fun year.

Wow! Black people ARE getting married. Man, the media spent half of 2011 spoonfeeding us sorrowful statistics about our perpetual singleness and the other half pushing us into the arms of White guys who were, hear them tell it, waiting just to love us. I’ve always been of the firm mind that there are sane, handsome, intelligent, marriage-worthy, take-home-to-your-family, won’t-ruin-your-credit brothers out there. It was a hot trend in the press to talk about how destitute our relationships are, but I’ve sent out more than my fair share of wedding gifts and congratulations cards. Black folks are falling in love and getting hitched. Yes, to each other.

WTH? Mum’s the word on the Troy Davis execution. I love me some President Obama and, judging by the crew that’s shaping up for Election 2012, I’ll be right back to Baracking the vote in November. But I was so irked by his very noticeable avoidance of Davis’ ever-impending execution. I don’t care what kind of back room conversations he had—I needed politics to take a backseat to ethics, even if the controversy was swirling around a Black man and that battered ol’ race card. I wasn’t expecting him to stay the decision, just give some kind of public acknowledgement. He managed to comment on the Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift debacle but he couldn’t say the words “Troy Davis” in the media? Disappointed.com.

Wow! Black TV makes a come-up… sort of. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the attempts that both BET and TVOne are making to create more well-rounded offerings for their viewerships (which, can we be honest, are pretty much one in the same). Thank you, Black Entertainment Television, for Black Girls Rock! and taking a stab at a classic Cosby-like show for the new millennium. Shout out to you, TVOne, for my beloved Unsung and for Love That Girl which, though not the most engaging sitcom I’ve ever watched, is a total Black production, from script to stage. That’s worth a hootie hoo.

WTH? The success of The Help. When you round up a cast of gifted Black actresses and some precious Hollywood air time, the possibility of producing something very poignant and very legendary is real. Not this time around. I just couldn’t sit through another we-sho-is-glad-White-folks-came-along-and-saved-us storyline when The Help dropped in August. I’m still having a hard enough time calming my itching palm whenever that doggone Pine Sol commercial assaults me from afar. One mammy on TV is more than enough. We sure don’t need them spread out on the big screen, too.

Wow! Carlina White discovers she’s missing. Imagine cruising around the Internet and seeing a baby pic that looks strikingly like you when you were a tot—and cracking a case that had been unsolved for more than two decades. In January, a young woman learned that she’d been snatched as a 19-day-old baby by a woman posing as a nurse in Harlem Hospital. Her mother-slash-abductor is still facing federal kidnapping charges but White, now 24, was reunited with her real parents earlier this year.

WTH? Kim Kardashian. That’s it. Just her. I’ll never figure out what our obsession with her or her family is, I’ll never get what the fascination about her among the general public is all about, I’ll never be able to wrap my mind around why she has a reality show, I’ll never be able to be quite clear why the masses hated Paris Hilton but opens their arms to KK, I’ll never understand why she’s even famous. I just can’t, but judging by all the perfumes and fan pages and whatnot, it’s evidently just me.